“They don’t say die, they don’t stop fighting,” Balrow coach Chris Lovelett said. “It’s not the first time we’ve been in this situation and been able to fight through and it’s because we’ve got some great leaders on this team and people that kept their heads. I’ve never been to a 37-35 game in my life. That’s nuts.”

To the Falcons’ credit, they also survived six Newington game points, and they felt it was critical to complete the sweep and not allow the two-time defending-champion Indians to get back into the match.

“It means a lot to come back here in this same gym and take them out 3-0,” Barlow’s Ryan Freeman said. “And that last game was crazy. I’ve never been a part of something quite like that.”

With the win over No. 3 Newington, No. 2 Barlow will take on No. 1 South Windsor, a 3-1 winner over Masuk in the other semifinal, on Thursday. Time and place are still to be announced.

“In all my years of coaching, I don’t think I’ve ever got to 37-35,” Newington coach Curt Burns said. “I told my guys it showed a lot about our resolve as a champion team. We showed we weren’t going to go away.”

This was the third straight year Barlow and Newington clashed in the playoffs, and it was the Indians that topped the Falcons 3-1 in season’s title game. Newington also beat Barlow 3-0 in the 2014 semifinals.

With his team down 27-26 in Game 1, a spike by Newington’s Dante Phillip tied the score, though the Indians would send the ball out of play on the next two points, giving Barlow the 29-27 win.

Game 1 was a satisfying victory for Barlow, which fell into a 6-0 hole and didn’t draw even until a spike from Reed Willkerson knotted the score at 18-18.

“There wasn’t too much talk about that (getting revenge),” Freeman said. “It was mainly just focusing on playing volleyball. One game at a time, one set at a time, one point at a time.”

The Falcons also trailed by scores of 24-22 and 25-24 in Game 1 and were forced to use their first timeout just four points into the match when they were down 4-0.

“The first game was a really big fight,” Levine said. “We were expecting them to come out strong. We had a little rough start, but we fought back into it and from there we had some good passing and some good defense, which starts it all.”

Game 2 turned into Spike City for the Falcons with Levine, Freeman and Wilkerson leading the way to a 25-17 win.

Barlow setter Austin Houser, who had 47 assists, routinely put it on a tee for his teammates, and they rarely missed the opportunity to finish.

Late in Game 2, Levine didn’t appear to get all of his spike attempt, but his placement couldn’t have been better and his touch kill gave the Falcons a 24-17 advantage.

The Barlow (18-3) duo of Levine and Wilkerson put the exclamation point on the 2-0 match lead by combining for a block for the 25-17 win.

“It was another chance for us to knock them out, but clearly they came up with a lot more energy,” Newington’s (17-5) Blake Mamaclay said. “They had all this pent-up anger from us knocking them out the last couple years and they really showed it today.”

“We fight, we play defense, we dive, we hit the floor and we got a lot of big plays from everyone,” Levine said.